Arrest warrant for Assange

PARIS: Interpol called on Wednesday for the arrest of WikiLeaks' founder.

The France-based Interpol said it had alerted all member-States to arrest Julian Assange, who is wanted in Sweden for “probable cause of suspected rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion”.

Mr. Assange's mother said she did not want her son, who has denied the charges, “hunted down”. Meanwhile Pakistan's Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani called in U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter for talks on Wednesday as WikiLeaks' steady release of 250,000 U.S. cables sent shockwaves around the diplomatic community. Islamabad reacted angrily to suggestions by U.S. diplomats that its nuclear weapons could fall into terrorist hands.

International fears over the safety of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal “are misplaced and doubtless fall in the realm of condescension,” Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit told AFP.

“There has not been a single incident involving our fissile material, which clearly reflects how strong our controls and mechanisms are.”

The anger stems from a 2009 cable in which then U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson reportedly wrote that the possibility that someone working in government nuclear facilities “could gradually smuggle enough material out to eventually make a weapon” was a “major concern”.

Meanwhile, Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was furious on Wednesday at suggestions by U.S. diplomats that he had secret accounts in Swiss banks and was involved in fraud, adding that aides were seeking to prosecute the authors of the offending cable.

Erdogan angry

“I do not have one penny in Swiss banks,” said Mr. Erdogan in an angry speech at a public ceremony in Ankara.

He urged Washington “to call to account” its diplomats for “slander derived from lies and inaccurate opinions,” adding that his aides were looking into ways of legal action against the cable authors.

“We have heard from two contacts that Erdogan has eight accounts in Swiss banks,” said the cable.

The hunt for Mr. Assange sparked by the Interpol request would likely focus on Sweden and Britain, where the elusive former computer hacker spends much of his time.

Mr. Assange is said to rarely sleep in the same place twice. Ecuador's left-leaning government initially offered Mr. Assange residency, but President Rafael Correa backtracked on Tuesday.

Mr. Assange, whose current location is unclear, contested the warrant in a Swedish appeals court, but his first bid to get it thrown out was rejected last week and he has lodged a second appeal. — AFP